Orange changes order of math courses for thousands of students

July 4, 2013|By Leslie Postal, Orlando Sentinel

The order of high school math courses will be flipped in Orange County schools in August, so most students will take algebra 1 and algebra 2 before they take geometry, the class traditionally sandwiched between the other two.

It's a change district administrators say will help the thousands of students who failed Florida's algebra 1 end-of-course exam this spring.

But others argue the resulting push of algebra 2 into middle school will ask too much of the talented math students who now start the high-school math sequence in seventh grade.

They also question whether enough middle school math teachers will be ready to teach algebra 2, typically a high school course, and they worry the plan might leave Orange students ill-prepared for some standardized tests down the road.

The district's view is this: The first part of algebra 2 is a review of algebra 1, and that would be helpful for students who passed their algebra 1 course but failed the state's algebra 1 exam. Those students can't take algebra 1 again but need remediation before they retake the state test required for graduation.

Timber Creek High School implemented the plan this past year with success, administrators said.

"I feel like we're on the right path," said Scott Fritz, the district's chief academic officer.

The change will first affect the more than 2,000 seventh-graders, about 5,500 eighth-graders and about 8,300 ninth-graders in Orange who took algebra 1 in the 2012-13 school year. Most will take algebra 2 as their next math course.

Sixty-six percent of Orange students who took the algebra end-of-course exam passed this spring. That means about 5,700 students failed. Some will retest this month, and others in December.

"For that student, it's definitely the right path," said Pam Guyton, who this past year taught seventh-grade math at Lake Nona Middle and is on the board of the Florida Council of Teachers of Mathematics. "Algebra 2 reinforces algebra skills."

But Guyton has heard some "mixed reactions" from other math teachers. Some worry, she said, that students will be hurt by not taking algebra 2 right before pre-calculus, the fourth course in the high school sequence, because algebra 2 is the steppingstone to that class. Others fear 10th-graders won't do as well on the PSAT, which includes geometry, if they haven't finished that course by the time they take the national test.

One parent, who asked not to be named, said she fears the change will harm students who now are to take algebra 2 as eighth-graders, likely from teachers inexperienced with the material.

"Pushing good students into classes for which they aren't prepared guts them of the confidence and motivation to learn subjects which they would otherwise have loved," she wrote in an email to administrators.

Nationally, Orange schools won't be alone, though the more common course progression is geometry between the two algebra courses, said Michael Shaughnessy, the immediate past president of National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

But Shaughnessy said in Florida it seems "a little iffy to do all the algebra up front."

That is because Florida is moving to Common Core academic standards in math and language arts and is part of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers. That partnership, dubbed PARCC, is developing Common Core-aligned exams that could replace Florida's current math exams.

The PARCC algebra 2 exam is to include content from algebra 1 and geometry, so students who hadn't taken geometry could be at a disadvantage.

But Florida's education leaders have not decided whether to adopt PARCC exams, and implementation of any new test is at least a few years away.

So for now, Orange administrators say the course switch will help. And this summer, the district is offering "algebra 2 academies" to help teachers get ready, Fritz added.